Vote of confidence, D-2: spotlight on the post-Bayrou era

Omnipresent in the media since he announced on August 25, to everyone's surprise, that he would submit to a vote of confidence, the Prime Minister was again a guest on Saturday evening on "C à vous" on France 5.

To hammer home once again his message on the urgency of France's "over-indebtedness" and the scale of the budgetary effort required, which he estimated at 44 billion euros for 2026. "I am taking every opportunity to face this inevitability," he explained.

On Sunday at noon, he will speak to the online media outlet Brut. This will be his last interview before the moment of reckoning: on Monday, the centrist Prime Minister, a long-time ally of Emmanuel Macron, will challenge the responsibility of his government before the National Assembly.

And barring a huge surprise, he should be carried away by the convergence of votes against almost unanimous opposition, from the left and the far right.

He still pretends to believe it, "perhaps a naivety on (his) part." But he has already confirmed his forced departure, after less than nine months at Matignon. "We'll have to find someone else anyway," he acknowledged, readily painting a portrait of his ideal successor: "Someone who can unite, who can bring people from the right, the center, the left around the table, and who can give them a sufficiently clear direction so that the fight we have led (...) can be carried forward, continued, and if possible imposed."

A personality also capable of avoiding the risk of financial markets spiraling out of control in the event of a political impasse, against a backdrop of social anger, starting Wednesday with the "Block Everything" movement, followed by a union mobilization on September 18.

No "blank check"

So far, this swan song plea has had no effect on the political class, which is already thinking about what comes next.

The topic has been a major focus of the Republican Congress, which is returning this weekend in Port-Marly, in the Yvelines department. The congress hopes to project an image of unity after the cacophony of the past few days.

LR MP leader Laurent Wauquiez caused a stir on Thursday by assuring that his group, in the name of stability, would not censure a government led by the Socialist Party a priori, prompting Bruno Retailleau, leader of the right, to correct him by warning that he would not give a "blank check" to the Socialists.

"If the left is in Matignon, the right will be in opposition," said the party's secretary general, Othman Nasrou, on Saturday.

The Interior Minister, who is calling on his troops to vote for confidence, will deliver a speech on Sunday.

A few hours earlier, the leader of the National Rally, Marine Le Pen, will make her political debut in her stronghold of Hénin-Beaumont, in Pas-de-Calais.

She is expected to reiterate the demand for a new dissolution on behalf of the far right, which says it could govern in the event of early legislative elections.

"It's time for battle"

Failing that, the far right wants Emmanuel Macron to resign, a move also insistently demanded by La France Insoumise, at the other end of the political spectrum.

"Only the presidential election can clarify" the situation, thundered Jean-Luc Mélenchon from the Lille flea market, confirming that LFI deputies are preparing to submit a new "motion of dismissal" of the head of state.

There is no question for the three-time candidate for the supreme election to consider another scenario: "We are not candidates for any other place, except for the first one to change everything."

From Monday evening, the ball will therefore be in the court of the head of state, who is also breaking unpopularity records.

For the moment, he has pleaded for the "mobilization" of his camp in favor of the Prime Minister, and advocated "responsibility" and "stability."

In public, he refused to discuss the post-Bayrou period before the deadline, but behind closed doors at the Elysée Palace, he asked the leaders of the government camp to "work with the socialists."

Even considering appointing their leader Olivier Faure to Matignon, while the Socialist Party is openly applying? Speculation is rife, but few in the president's entourage imagine this scenario.

"He will need a little bit of a balance of power (...) to understand" that "the next government will be left-wing and green or it will not exist," said the head of the Greens, Marine Tondelier.

From Corrèze, François Hollande, for his part, assured that he was not coveting Matignon, noting that "the big meeting will be 2027."